Augmented reality technology has seen unprecedented growth in the last 5 years.
Market leaders like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon have largely contributed to the development of AR technologies in the commercial sector.
According to MarketsandMarkets, the valuation for AR technology is worth $15.3 billion. The number strongly translates its worth in exploring the different avenues and trends. Last year, AR active devices were estimated to rise to 598 million units. By the end of 2024, it is projected to grow to 1.73 billion.
AR is not only allowing businesses to embrace new possibilities but also helping them to pitch potential customers globally.
Why Are Brands Adopting The Use Of AR Technology?
1. The primary objective of AR is to employ computerized simulation and rich audio-visual techniques. It offers a reality-based display environment that takes the capabilities of computer-generated display, sound, text, and effects.
2. AR technology allows effective and efficient utilization of image recognition, animation, head-mounted displays through smartphones and smart glasses to enhance the user’s real-world experience.
3. Web AR or Web-based AR is the use of Augmented Reality technology without the need for an app. Web AR experiences launch from within any standard iOS or Android mobile web browser and can be activated using the standard device camera.
Bonus Points:
It results in a highly intuitive experience that gets consumers to engage with brands in less than three taps on their phones. If brands couple this streamlined user flow with clear Call-to-Actions within the experience, they can increase sales and inquiries by driving highly engaged traffic to destinations of their choice.
Let us take a look at some Augmented Reality examples, where brands have slayed the technology game.
Sephora & TimberLand Aced The AR Game With Try-on Feature!
The inception of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people shop.
Stay-at-home orders spiked up the trend of online shopping, with more than half of the population shopping online. While the pandemic also showered some negative impacts and challenged many retailers, the trend towards personalized, immersive customer experiences spurred examples of beauty and fashion brands such as L’Oreal and Pandora turning to augmented reality (AR) as a novel way to help their customers try on cosmetics, jewelry or apparel.
Some businesses aim at driving footfall to their physical stores, but Sephora has delivered a notable example of doing something very unique. Their app’s AR functionality helps users to make informed choices online, ensuring that this is as helpful as visiting the physical store.
How?
Well, imagine you need lipstick and don’t know what shade to pick. Thanks to its facial recognition tech, Sephora allows a person to try out different shades on their face in real-time, compare and share looks, as well as complete the purchase.
Another striking example is the magic mirror by Timberland, to entice customers.
The brand placed a magic mirror outside its store, allowing people to try on clothing digitally. This proved to be an excellent idea for increasing footfall when launching new ranges or driving seasonal sales.
Major Takeaways:
- In a year’s span, the concept of using AR technology to merge an e-commerce customer experience with what they might feel in a physical store has gone mainstream.
A study by thinkmobiles.com suggests that 71% of shoppers would shop more often if they could use AR, and 40% would consider paying more if they could examine a product through AR
- AR in retail serves as a great way to compare prices and features of the product just by pointing their phones at the product shelf.
- It brings practical benefits for businesses to connect with the users in a better way.
- It certainly has the potential to completely change the future of brick-and-mortar stores.
HUTCH & IKEA Brings Astounding Benefits To The Table
IKEA allows its customers to feel the quality of different products. This helps buyers and interior decorators to see how an item fits into a room and generally helps build a classic prototype of the possible future of the space.
HUTCH focuses on the simple idea “to discover the inner interior designer”. Their augmented reality furniture app aims to customize the living space virtually, without the risk of making unnecessary purchases. The app comprises decor elements from the most popular companies.
Major Takeaways:
- From stress to cost reduction Augmented Reality technology has given a new identity to the world’s furniture business. AR outlays virtual animated objects to the real environment creating a more personalized shopping experience for customers.
- Augmented Reality applications have also provided a whole new insight into marketing furniture. It has proved to be a very effective sales booster being at the forefront of modern technology.
- The use of animations to test how an item fits in gives a gamified approach to the furniture business whilst still offering relevant product information and helpful 3D experiences to catch customer’s fancy.
ALSO READ: WHAT IS AUGMENTED REALITY? WHY BUSINESSES NEED AN AR STRATEGY?
Klubs Tried Something Completely Out Of The Box!
The men’s lifestyle magazine, Klubs did an impeccable job with the implementation of Augmented Reality. It featured a section dedicated to female cover models — classy and professionally done photos of women wearing little to nothing. They decided to enable the magazine’s pages with augmented reality, thinking that we could really get readers to clock up AR use behind-the-scenes from photoshoots. This campaign generated a huge amount of interest and did good, overall.
Young adults, teens, and children are now born with tech inextricably intertwined with their lives. Until recently, traditional print dominated media consumption, but the popularity of the written press among Europeans has decreased. The rates of daily printed press consumption dropped from 37% in 2012 to 29% in 2016 — and we’re in 2021 now! Digital media has been steadily seeping in too.
In a situation like such, what would draw people to digital content is visual storytelling and interactivity. Especially for the younger generations, digital information is more comfortable to access and consume and often proves to be more engaging. And well, Klubs understood the assignment!
Stambol Pioneered Real Estate Marketing Through AR
AR has influenced every aspect of our lives and real estate is no exception.
Goldman Sachs predicts the virtual reality and augmented reality market in real estate could top $2.6 billion by 2025, forever altering how we view properties.
Research shows that 80% of millennials have the desire to buy their own homes and well, AR is the perfect way to garner interest.
AR in real estate superimposes images or text over our view of the world. It blurs the line between reality and technology thereby creating a seamless experience for the viewer.
In this digitally driven age, Stambol is doing a great job in showing us how:
- AR can change the real estate landscape
- To visualize a property
- To reach larger audiences and find out which aspects of AR appeal to buyers
- Businesses can increase foreign investments
Major Takeaways:
The benefits of AR in the real estate industry are beyond astounding
- It provides clarity in product representation. When a customer can’t visualize the end product, it can take longer to close the deal and can prevent realtors from pre-selling new projects. AR makes the product more tangible which is essential for pre-selling built and unbuilt properties.
- It lets the customer adjust the property’s style, furniture, and surroundings to cater to their taste. With all this available information, realtors have a higher chance of closing a deal.
- There is a better and wider engagement between businesses and their customers. The latter can use AR to visit properties from the comfort of their couch. This allows realtors to tap into new audiences, particularly a more tech-savvy demographic.
- It not only eliminates the costly process of home staging but also removes any visualization barriers.
Hyundai Turned Heads When It Introduced Virtual Guide
The automotive industry has been a driver of human progress, with intense rivalry and a host of new, safe, and innovative features presented with every new car. This constant striving for innovations is reflected every day, with it embracing augmented reality technologies in the context of developing new vehicles.
The automotive market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 177% for the next 2 years, reaching $5.5 billion by the end of 2023
Hyundai came with the most up-to-date and exciting features to make the user learn more about their vehicle. The user is provided with an option that scans any devices of the car. Without visiting the automobile store, users can view the car and its specific models.
The Hyundai Virtual Guide helps to go through the user manual rather than going through a dense instruction manual. The virtual content about the car manual proved to be the best way to educate the users apart from driving the car.
Other major car companies like Mitsubishi, Chrysler, Porsche are quickly adopting Augmented Reality applications in their search for another competitive edge. A breakdown of the most innovative use cases AR offers in automotive are as follows:
- Enhancement of AR services for driver experience provides them with information about the surrounding environment, conditions, and in-windshield navigation.
- AR instructions and guides replace long and complex manuals.
- AR headsets automate the training process in the manufacturing or maintenance of automobiles.
- AR guided picking helps warehouse employees become more efficient.
ALSO READ: AUGMENTED REALITY IN ADVERTISING
AR In Social Media? Watch Snapchat, Facebook & Instagram
Augmented reality has become more common in social media, thanks to Snapchat for giving it a breakthrough. As per reports and estimations, 43.7 million people will use social network AR at least once per month in 2021, representing 20.8% of social network users. Snapchat will be the predominant platform.
With Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok launching their own filters, and effects, AR is showing its value not only for branding and entertainment but also for commerce
- Snapchat introduced several updates in June, including machine-learning models and Local Lenses.
- Facebook has been rolling out AR advertising for various products through Spark AR Hub.
- Instagram has added several try-on features.
- TikTok recently released its first augmented reality filter on the new iPhone 12 Pro, using LiDAR technology. It allows one to create effects that interact with the environment – visually bridging the digital and physical worlds.
- Pinterest had previously launched an AR try-on experience for lipstick in 2019, which has now grown to include 10,000 shades, discoverable from 48 million beauty pins from various top brands. Now the app is expanding its virtual makeup try-on capabilities with the launch of a new feature that allows online shoppers to virtually try on eyeshadows.
Although Pinterest is early in its AR development, it should not be ruled out as eventual competitors.
Final Thought:
Augmented reality has perfectly accomplished a vital place in various verticals. Top brands are using Augmented Reality solutions to streamline their services and garner maximum engagement from potential customers.
If you are convinced that implementing AR technologies can elevate your business, we can help you with our top-notch development services.
